Chapter Seventeen - The War on Iraq

"Never doubt that a small group of people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
                                                                                               —Margaret Mead

The War on Iraq

Springtime in New York

The lavender plant that climbed the trellis on the balcony was just starting to send out tiny spiky little buds of what would soon be tiny leaves. It spent winters comfortably tucked into the conservatory off of Dave’s bedroom but now it was ready to reach out its new tendrils and branches into the first soft air of a new spring day.

The flowers would follow perfuming the city air with scent. Bernard and Dolly had made dinner for the crew, all except for Dave who was off doing research, this time in Massachusetts. Christopher had offered to clean up and stacked dishes, loading them efficiently into the dish washer. Larry had wandered back to his computer leaving the cats bereft and watching the door for his return. Dolly usually brought Marge along now when she was working up here. Since the only apartments on this floor were Dave’s and the office they left the doors open and the cats wandered back and forth, enjoying the enlarged scope. 

Bernard closed his eyes, letting the warmth of the sun glaze his skin. It was nice to feel some semblance of peace with the world erupting in war. America had invaded a foreign country citing urgent and compelling need because Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction that it intended to use. The country had been gripped in panic, forced to remember the horrific events of 9/11 happening again. The entire country had watched as its fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, uncles and aunts, brothers and sisters had marched off to war. Prayer was a common uniting theme from every pulpit and every heart.

The crew at the American Revival Headquarters in New York, Dolly, Bernard, Larry and Christopher, had shut down for the news show where the invasion was announced, watching as Americans, young and grim, embarked on what they at headquarters feared would be a long term presence in a country that would not be pacified. War had been a constant state in Iraq for all too long. 

The announcement that they had hit the Iraqi dictator’s headquarters with a smart missile had sent a stab of shock and excitement through the entire country. While there was doubt about what America was going there was no doubt that America’s military would do their duty no matter what it cost them. Watching those thousands of faces, most of them so very young and so strong and true, on television brought tears to their eyes. Dolly had cried quietly into her handkerchief. Bernard had looked over at her. Dolly had spent many years working for Veterans when she was active in Elks. Bernard had been shocked when she had showed him just how badly their country treated its former military. He had not known. Knowing had explained to him the underlying bitterness expressed by so many former military. 

Had it always been like this and had Americans just not known? Dolly looked at him with the faintest touch of sadness. Her father had served during World War II. It had not been like this then. 

Looking at Dolly as she took a few minutes to relax after dinner talking about the veterans evoked a barrage of feelings in Bernard. There was so much to admire in her. As she talked he reveled in the simple pleasure of watching her, a small gift of fate he would never have expected.

The Bunker in Georgia

It was not simple, of course. Until the e-mail had shown up and Uncle Iban had confirmed that it originated from Iraq through the Emirates of Saudi Arabia it had been emotionally and physically restorative to read Mervin’s correspondence. Lindsey had laughed over the pedagogy. It had helped her feel less hurt and marginalized. Revenge was sweet and allowing him to ‘steal’ doctored documents that Mervin then used in his incredibly turgid and self congratulatory book had been a real catharsis. But The E-mail had changed all of that. 

At first it had been impossible to take it seriously. In fact, Lindsey had gone ahead and planted some spy ware on the computer of the ‘El-Dictator,’ not really believing this could possibly be the real thing. How could this happen to her while she was cowering in the Bunker in Georgia in an attempt to avoid ugly threats of violence from Tom Dicks? She and Dwayne puzzle over how to get El-Dictator to open an unsolicited e-mail and then Dwayne supplied the perfect subject line and content to disguise the bug. “Women without Veils” it had read. Inside were some free naughty pictures along with the requisite bug. Dwayne was worried about sending salacious material over the Internet but on balance decided that it was their duty to get information for their country if it was there to be got. Both of them thought there must be some other explanation, though. What former administration didn’t know better than to meddle in war? 

There were no veils of any kind and El-Dictator, the name they had given the possessor the strange e-mail who has been discussing ‘terms’ with Mervin had opened the e-mail immediately. Lindsey had watched it happen, supplying an interested Dwayne with an ongoing blow by blow update. 

The ensuing supply of copied e-mail from El-Dictator were simply fascinating – when they were in English. Then the evidence had started to accumulate. By the time Uncle Iban returned from his vacation there really was not much doubt about what Mervin was doing or the identity of El-Dictator.

The e-mails had revealed that Mervin and the former president and first lady had crossed a line. No American can enter into negotiations with a foreign power in time of war. The Commander in Chief is absolutely in charge whether or not you agree with what he is doing. It was black and white; night and day. It was as simple and as complicated as that.

Fortunately, that was no longer Lindsey’s problem.

As soon as they confirmed the origin of the e-mails Lindsey knew she would have to get the information to the FBI. Of course she was worried about what the people at the FBI would think of her planting doctored e-mails, letting Mervin steal them, and reading Mervin’s correspondence, she could see that; but to ignore this, especially when the timing made it obvious that El-Dictator’s faltering assurance had been bolstered by this contact left no choice. 

Lindsey had contacted the FBI in early December through a friend of her mother’s with the CIA. Mom had said that another agency that did sort of the same thing was close enough for government work. They had gotten back to Lindsey almost immediately – and asked her to keep doing exactly what she had been doing. That had surprised her. She expected that they would tell her to behave herself and never do it again. Instead for two months she found her self working gratis for the government as some kind of a special agent. Dwayne and her mother, the only other people who knew, were bemused and astonished. 

Lindsey spent long nights monitoring El-Dictator’s correspondence and sending the resulting e-mails on to her contact at the FBI.

Then, very early one morning in March, Lindsey was ‘pinging’ the e-mail address, tracking it by echoing off of it with her computer. She had started doing this because she had figured out how to do it and it was fun to watch El-Dictator sitting there, oblivious to being visible. 

Then between one ‘ping’ and the next the location of the computer had shifted from Baghdad to Washington D.C. Lindsey turned off her computer and turned on the television. The military had just hit the suspected location of the dictator and his sons. Lindsey sat down again, staring at the screen. If they had missed him they had certainly taken out his computer. The news stations were all replaying the explosion and the screaming deluge of fire that had resulted.

 

Lindsey did not turn on the computer again for three days, an eternity for her. People had died, even if they were bad people who had done horrifying things they had died because she had personally had bugged Mervin’s computer. It would take time to digest the reality; this was not a game.

Lindsey noticed when the official government source flashed the e-mail she had sent them across the screen of the television. Her stomach sunk a little. It was out there now. She wondered what Mervin thought about it; he must wonder how they found out. She tried not to think about Dave. He had never e-mailed her back.

Concord, Massachusetts

The Professor was your stereotypical libertarian nerd. He even looked like a nerd. His hair was a little too long for business, brushed back but then disarranged by the occasional hand to the forehead action that Dave could see was a habit for the man when he was thinking. An instructor of physics at a prestigious institution in Massachusetts the Professor had made the Libertarian Party his home and hearth politically and socially for a big chunk of his life. Other wise that life seemed to be limited to teaching (he fought with the administration constantly and was now engaged in yet another battle in the continuing larger war) and to role playing games. This last had surprised Dave, who had not known how many ‘gamers’ were also libertarians. He made a note of this. Christopher and Larry would be interested since both were gamers. 

 

Cyrus Washington in Arizona had given Dave the Professor’s phone number. The Professor had spent the last ten years trying to wrest control of the Libertarian Party away from the Mossternistas and was delighted to discuss this ongoing war with someone new. He had in fact written a book about it and recommended that Dave go buy the online version of the exhaustively annotated and footnoted volume and read it immediately. In nearly the same breath he had informed Dave that he also wrote science fiction and that was available on the same site. 

The downloaded book was an eye opener. Dave passed it on to Christopher to be added to the chronology and cluster assemblage. It had been thorough, just what you imaged a professor would produce. So why was he sitting here in the Professor’s living room talking about the pointless campaign of a tiny political party that was shrinking into complete irrelevance? 

Because what had happened to the Libertarians in 30 years demonstrated clear parallels to what had happened on the larger stage of politics with the major parties over a far longer period of time. The worst and the most unethical had won out and were now in charge. 

Dave did not understand why this would happen. Perhaps, or probably, the Professor did not either. But Dave wanted to know. How had a tiny but well connected group of individuals hijacked the LP? How they had held on to control for so long? Worst of all, why, when control was finally wrested from their grasping fingers, had nothing much really changed? 

 

The patterns that had begun to emerge in this microcosm of American political life were more than disquieting. They reminded Dave of a weird kind of Stephen King book where the hero morphs into the villain before your very eyes. 

It was third party politics but the action had been deadly serious and through policy it had impacted both major parties and the direction of America as a nation. 

It was after midnight when Dave managed to extract himself from the grasp of the Professor. The Professor had never married and so the only interruptions had been several calls about gaming meetings and one regarding latest onslaught of Libertarian politics. 

They had gone out to dinner at The Armadillo Depot, a barbeque place that reminded Dave very much of Texas. They ordered at the counter and then sat at one of the tables and savored the hickory smoked ribs and sides. The Professor talking the whole time. Dave could understand his aggravation with the personalities who had taken over the LP. He recognized some of the names from conversations with Cyrus, Lindsey and others familiar with the group. 

What Dave learned was that after an all too brief honeymoon period of intense growth and intellectual freedom in the 70s and early 80s the LP had leveled off in growth and by the late 80s was heading slightly down in numbers. At that point it had been captured by the group associated with its least successful presidential candidate to that point. 

The personalities had not changed much from then until recently. There was the group that clustered around Moss, the former LP presidential candidate from 1984. They had struggled through that election cycle, failing to make the ballot in all fifty states. But they had stayed in control of the LP. They had continued in pretty much the same way until Jasper Figstein-Fog had figured out how to sell the rhetoric of freedom without even pretending to match it with a political product. 

Dave had read Fog’s numerous essays and polemics and fundraising letters so he saw how it was done. Fog also seemed to be a real polarizer. The LP news and various other libertarian publications sang his praises in the highest terms while he was despised by most activists. Those groupings of opinion broke nicely into two factions; those who were working as volunteers and those who were paid staff or being reimbursed for their activities. 

The 2002 LP Convention in Indianapolis had marked a migration by the Fogites or Mossternistas away from the LP to another organization for many of those formerly involved at the national level. 

From around 1989 until the main group of them were ousted from the National Committee it was what the Professor described as a Ponzi scheme, designed to optimize the dollars extracted from donors who were all too often credulous and wishful in their belief that the LP represented something that ultimately would become a major party. The attrition rate was about 50%, meaning 50% of new members never renewed. There was a core of faithful, around 20% who stayed and donated no matter which faction was in control. But they could be pushed to give more if they were properly, or improperly massaged with the right message. 

The right message was a lie. But this core of donors, endlessly forgiving it seems, did not notice. That was where Fog came in. It was his political strategy that had turned the LP from a political organization to one that produced 401Ks, salaries and perks for the employees. 

Most members just wanted good things to happen. They trusted the leadership to do those things. In this they were amazingly like Americans in general and also like members of the Republican and Democratic Parties. 

But the power always went to the least ethical because the dynamics were such that the least ethical had the most to gain, the least to lose, and the most persistence. 

Wow. Dave felt a little sick. The think tanks that had spun off of this movement were now among the largest and most prestigious in the country. They were also the source for a lot of the bad stuff that was working its way into policy. 

The dynamics were clear. The conduits for the transmission and adaptation of the ideas could be graphed into their data. In some cases they could point to the time when a shift had taken place and even which specific individuals had been responsible. 

But none of that told American Revival what to do about it. 

That was Dave’s job and he prayed he would figure it out soon. 

Tonight Dave was staying at a wonderful inn in Andover, Massachusetts. The Andover Inn was located on the grounds of Phillips Andover Academy, a preparatory school with its own unique place in American history. The rooms exuded charm and that ineffable quality of continuity and history that Dave found comforting. He fell into the soft sheets and curled up like a wounded animal. Tomorrow he was going to do the other side of the interview. That meant a meeting with Rachael Cowlings, the woman who had served as the figure head for the Mossternistas here in Massachusetts. Rachael Cowlings was also the live-in lover of Jasper Figstein-Fog. Fog would be there. Dave already knew he was not going to like the guy.

Newburyport, Massachusetts

Gladys drove into Logan Airport, crossing through the round-a-bouts on 1A. Sam had offered to rent a car and drive out or take the train, but Gladys insisted. It had been a long time. 

Time had not stood still for either of them. When they had first met Gladys had been in her early 30s and Sam had still had the dewy youngness of college idealism clinging to his skin. Eyes age first perhaps because eyes must withstand the impact of disillusionment.

 

It was not the tiny wrinkles that make eyes older; it is the pain that fills them. Sam’s eyes held pain in its pure form. Unmarried, Sam bore those psychic wounds undiluted by the loving family that had filled Gladys’s life with happy moments and the grandchildren who overflowed her house during the summer. 

Two old friends sat in the dying light of a spring afternoon and talked late into the night, barely stopping to eat. It had not taken long for them to begin making notes, searching out address books and agendas long ago filed and nearly forgotten. 

Through the muted colors that separate the day from night they began talking about the woman, long dead, who had inspired each of them in different ways. 

Gladys remembered Eleanor Roosevelt’s kindnesses in small ways; her small gifts and notes over the years and her continuing awareness of the causes that had moved their generation to activism. Gladys recalled the first time it occurred to her that this woman was viewed as someone special by those who did not know her. 

Gladys unearthed the personal copy of the Human Rights Declaration that Eleanor Roosevelt had personalized and autographed for her. Gladys had always meant to have it framed. Perhaps now she would. Sam had never met the former First Lady; she had died a few months before he had begun working in New York but she had inspired him, too. The words of the Declaration had provided for Sam and for another generation a vision and direction that was both tangible and essentially spiritual. 

That vision became tangible again for them as Gladys softly read the Declaration in it’s entirely. Most of it was the words of Eleanor herself. As she read the words Gladys felt a rich rush of memories. The indomitable dignity of Eleanor, her astute insights, her kindness to everyone whose life she touched. It had been a vision worth living for.

“Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,

Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,

Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law….”

The preamble had always reminded Gladys of the Declaration of Independence with its stirring phrases marking out a course of honor for all people to follow. Each one of the following articles had been a statement of hope for what the future could bring with time and good will.

At the end Gladys sat back onto the swinging seat in their conservatory that had witnessed so many of the happy moments of her life. The sun, a glowing ball of gold and fire was disappearing against a backdrop of hills and water, casting a halo of color on the world.

Gladys did not look at Sam at first as she began talking about the things she had noticed, the things that had thwarted their plans, converting the potentials for good into the mans for fattening the pockets of a new aristocracy of people dependent of corporations and government to fatten their investment portfolios.

How it had been done was now obvious. It had always been the same means. Now they could see that.

“So, Sam. What are we going to do about it? That is the only question that matters.” Sam smiled. The last weeks had been busy ones for him.

“My answer is probably going to surprise you. We need allies and the environmental movement is creating them.”

Gladys looked over at him. “Tell me more.”

Sam had been busy. The new generation of environmentalists had new ideas and had contacted him. These younger, more optimistic folks were all over the world but instead of focusing on government were skeptical of what they called ‘collectivist’ approaches to ensuring that humankind left a light print on the Earth. It was the same vision seen through new eyes.

Springtime in New York

Dolly was amazed at the intensity and life of New York. Sometimes in the mornings she would go for walks now that the weather was better and somehow it happened that Bernard would more often than not accompany her. He told her it was his responsibility to make sure she didn’t get lost, but the walks became important to him, too. Watching Dolly discover New York was an unexpected delight. Dolly was the kind of person who saw things that evaded more calloused eyes and seeing the world with Dolly lightened Bernard’s cynicism.

Dolly and he stopped for lunch one day at the Tavern on the Green, ordering frugally but enjoying every bite of the impeccably served meal. Later, Bernard realized he had fallen in love with Dolly someplace between the lake and the Museum of Art. 

That afternoon they had taken some time and gone to the exhibit of the art of the first cities in the Fertile Crescent. The exhibit took them through the third millennium B.C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus. It was amazing to look at jewelry that had been worn by women dead thousands of years that was not so very different that the ornaments you saw on the women examining the items in the exhibit. Dolly had looked up at Bernard at one point and asked there the price tag might be. She had laughed at the look of consternation on his face. Bernard’s slow sense of humor was something she definitely enjoyed.

Bernard kissed her for the first time while they were wending their way back through the Park. It was a gentle kiss given as Dolly turned towards him to ask yet another question. She had not remembered afterwards what that question was. They had walked along, holding hands through the sunlight and springtime. 

For Bernard it was a gentle kind of love made up of shared jokes, happy moments, common tastes and a personal need to know that Dolly was happy and safe. They did not talk about it. They accepted it. It was springtime and they were both glad to just live in the moment.

St. Petersburg, Florida

It had been a struggle to just provide the veterans from past wars and conflicts with the services they needed. Now, the government was again going adventuring without ever having cleaned up its act. And they were dragging in service people from the National Guard units from all over the country knowing perfectly well that these service people had far less guarantees than those of regular service people. It was outrageous. 

Percy (PG) Grolick had just written an article on the subject of the horrendous fate of the Veterans of the Vietnam Conflict. One local serviceman was living under a bridge. Delays and red tape had destroyed any possibility he had of living a decent life. Even collecting the pittance that was promised could be nearly impossible, much less getting what disabled vets needed. He is more than ever determined to give Veterans a voice in politics. One of his buddies, now active in a vets group in California had sent him information on just what the US spent every year just on aid to Israel. It made his blood boil. It was enough to care for every vet. Whose idea was this asinine support of Israel, anyway? PG decided he was going to find out. His mom had been Jewish, for gosh sakes and she had thought it was a terrible idea. Pausing PG suddenly realized that his mother being Jewish made him Jewish. Sort of. Strange, he had never looked at himself that way.

In Transit to Iraq

“I know it is going to be tough. But I also know that no one is more capable than you are of doing the job.” Nora wanted to smile, but hearing Garth say the words made her gulp back tears. The family was already using food stamps and thought long and hard about such expenditures as new socks for the kids. Mostly clothing for the six kids, ages 11 through six months, came from grandparents and charity groups. 

That was what life was life for military families now. Nora had heard stories from older mothers about how it had been once a long time ago. Services were available, housing was good; stores on the bases were cheap and accessible. It had been a real community that took care of its own. She sighed looking around the tiny house. Garth had not awakened the kids so only little Louise, only six months old, had seen him this morning. He would write each of them a letter while he was in transit. He was good about that kind of thing. They had moved three times in the last seven years and it had been tough. 

Looking around the living room Nora settled in for a moment to nurse Louise, who was becoming a little restless. Nora had nursed all of the kids and then learned to sew because otherwise there were so many things she and Garth could not afford to give them. Garth’s parents had promised to provide trust funds for college. Nora always felt anxious when she thought about all of the expenses. But they were wonderful kids. Each of them was well behaved and courteous to adults and even to their friends in school. Their supplemental ‘fun’ educational experiences here at home had become both their entertainment and Nora’s best hope for scholarships to supplement those trust funds. 

This month they were studying the history of the town near the base here in North Carolina. It was interesting and the historical society had not minded the invasion of little Brannons one bit. Every one of them had questions to ask and enjoyed finding out the answers. The importance of understanding the real history of the country their father was defending with his life was important. If they didn’t learn it at home the Brannons knew they would never know it at all. The curriculum of the schools was a sad disappointment. 

Garth was due to be gone sixteen months. Louise had finished nursing, looking up at her mother with adoring eyes as she edged away into sleep. Gently tucking the baby in to the old crib that served as her bed Nora got up and began cleaning. The kids would be up and getting ready for school in a half an hour. There was a lot to do before then.

North Carolina Courtroom

 

Karen’s knees were shaking when she got out of the car in the parking lot of the Court House. Gulping, she avoiding throwing up again but it was a close thing. The work needed to get ready for this hearing had taken weeks of intensive study. She had written her own pleadings with the help of Coop who had told her he would meet her there in court. He needed to drive down from Charlotte, a journey of three hours. Katrina was grateful he was coming and comforted that she would not be alone. Paul had not been able to take yet another day off work.

 

Karen had found Coop online through a parents group comprised of other people who had been through similar experiences. The Department of Social Services had marched in and taken all of the kids away. Documentation from their teachers on how well they were doing in school and even the protests of the kids themselves had been to no avail. They had been told that getting the kids up early in the morning as inappropriate. This had shocked Karen. While she and her parents had been raised in town she had grown up on stories of the early mornings and hard work of her grandparents who had worked a farm in lower Illinois for sixty years. Karen’s Dad remembered feeding the pigs before daylight when he was only six years old. Hard work makes for good character. That was what he had believed and what he had passed on to his daughter, Karen. Where did the DSS get off telling them how to raise their kids? Where did they get off dictating standards when parents were clearly doing a good job? They had done nothing when the kids were living with their natural mother and she was selling drugs out of the house. It was like the world had turned upside down and good was bad and bad was good. 

 

Grasping her briefcase, recycled from her days in engineering school, Karen stood up straight, thinking out the details of what she had to do in the courtroom. It had been six months now since they had seen the kids and the thought of that was an open sore that still throbbed. 

Squaring her shoulders, she walked towards the long rise of steps built at great expense from while marble. The courthouse was supposed to be the place where those in need of justice must be heard. Karen hoped and prayed that this could be true. 

Coop had shown them how they could fight back and now that was going to start happening. Briefly, Karen wondered how she would recognize Coop. She had never seen the man with the calm, steady voice on the other end of the phone line. A stab of anxiety hit her in the stomach. Then she heard a voice behind her as she approached the courtroom door from the long dark corridor outside. She would know that voice anywhere. 

 

Afterwards, she had time to think about how Coop really was. When she had turned to see him she had been struck only by his extraordinary presence and the calm fire of his eyes. It was later, when Coop was critiquing her performance in court hat she had really looked at him. 

 

His face was clean shaven but marred with the record of old injuries. Life had left its mark there. She had made notes as he talked; her performance must improve, she knew that. Their case, hers and Paul’s was only one instance. Other families were in danger and as Coop had said; if they did not take action the huge machine of the DSS would continue to destroy families. It was their job to make sure that did not happen.

Princeton, New Jersey

 

 No one who knew Ellen Selfridge thought she would ever retire. Ellen had loved her job in the rarified atmosphere of corporate America and then when she had left that job to start her own business the corporation that was losing her hastily offered to pay her more. Not what a man in the same job would get, of course, but more than any other woman working there. Ellen left anyway. It was time and this way she could put time into something that had come to matter to her more and more over time. 

Now, Ellen had applied her many years of experience to replicate the poll she had done for the Girl Scouts. She had raided her savings account for the $2,000.00 the polling company had asked to include the necessary questions in their national poll. That was practically nothing, but the president of the corporation had learned his trade under Ellen and he remembered gratefully her patience and good nature. 

It had taken six months. Then, Ellen had been given the raw data to analyze. The outcome had been astonishing. Replicating the outcome achieved by the local Girl Scout Troop it told the same story about Americans. A majority of 97% firmly believed that all men and women should be equal under the law; 72% believed they already were, ignorant of the success of the disinformation campaign that had defeated the ERA twenty years before. 

Ellen’s hands nearly shook with excitement when she read over the compiled results of the poll. The significance dawned on her like a warm glow of iridescent joy overflowing a container too small to hold the entirety. Americans had ratified the ERA in their hearts and minds while the political establishment had sat on their hands, frozen in inaction. As so many Southerners had ratified equal access to education and voting rights for Black Americans because they saw the justice of it so Americans had ratified equal justice for women. 

Ellen touched the figures, running her sensitive fingers over them. She did not notice the tears that were trickling down her cheeks until one splashed on the paper before her. Briefly, she paused to hope that the many women who had not lived to see this moment knew or felt the momentousness of it. 

Something had to be done. Abruptly, Ellen stood up, charged with a desire to take action. Others had to know and, most important, they needed to ensure that the law matched the expressed wishes of the American people. 

Three days later Ellen and three of her oldest friends started the ERAratification.net organization that now had, after languishing for twenty years, begun the process of ensuring that women would someday be equal under the law of the United States as well as equal in the wishes of America’s people. 

Ellen felt the rising winds of possibility despite the pitfalls of politics.